Reviews

This 2002 abortive attempt to revive "The Time Tunnel" plays much like a Sci-Fi Channel movie-of-the-week. It has nothing to do with the classic TV series, other than lifting a few character names and a brief "sampling" of the original theme. Rather, it comes out like a bad copy of "Stargate". For the most part poorly and cheaply made, it is just as well the pilot was unsuccessful. However, there are some very interesting ideas going on.

In this one, scientists accidentally create a "time tunnel" when trying to make "hot fusion". Instead, they cause a storm in the time stream, and it takes them four hours (240 minutes) to lock down one end of it. The other end sweeps through time. After the "two-forty", random changes have been made to history, and the scientists in the fusion complex are the only ones left who know what the correct history of the world is supposed to be. Now they must send teams back in time via the "time tunnel" and try to correct the errors. Teams (a la "Stargate"), can go back in time, but are limited to random time limits in which they can stay there (a la "Sliders"). Unlike the classic series, the teams can return to the present whenever they wish by activating a small laptop-type device.

The World War 2 battle stuff is really pretty good. It plays well for the most part. Things get stupid when newly-recruited team member Doug Phillips meets his grandfather in the trenches and they have a heart-to heart talk. Further lapses in logic occur when the team consists of two women dressed as GIs, one of whom is black (units were not integrated at this point in WW2, let alone allow for women in combat). And then there's the whole element of mission control being able to see, hear, talk with, and translate languages for the travelers via a magic computer chip injected into them.

Interesting to see once, but not if you're expecting a classic "Time Tunnel" update. The music is incredibly annoying, and the CGI very weak (it looks more "early '90s" quality than 2002).

Available as an extra on "The Time Tunnel, Vol. 2" US DVD set.

This is an interesting chronicle of the ANZACs, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.

One reason my fellow reviewer here might not have enjoyed this film is that it was created for an entirely different culture (Australia). To brand it as "bad" simply because it isn't American is patently unfair.

This made-for-TV production is really aimed squarely at the Australian audience, who still revere the memory of the ANZACs, the troops who suffered horrendous losses at Gallipoli in WWI. The heroism of the ANZACs, who fought so bravely and with such determination, was such that the Turkish enemy erected a monument to them.

While it is true that the film (culled from a five-part mini-series), is not riveting entertainment compared to something like "Centennial" or "War and Rememberance", it does outline the feelings, views, and politics of the day faced by the ANZAC forces.

The Australian and New Zealand viewpoints of the Great War are rarely on display, and here we have all of the various sentiments played out before us. The overall feeling (still is tangible today), is that the incompetence and arrogance of British officers (under whom the ANZAC force operated), were directly responsible for the waste of lives in pointless charges against the heavily entrenched Turkish forces.

The mini-series is positively anti-colonial in regards to the portrayal of the British as uncaring, and more interested in saving British lives than that of the Aussies or New Zealanders.

Paul Hogan will most likely be the only familliar face for American viewers. I would recommend the Mel Gibson film "Gallipoli" for those looking for a familliar cast and a relatively big budget look. That film also has more weight to it, and is more stylized.

While "ANZACs" does come off as a bit like "light drama", or perhaps almost a glorified soap opera, if someone is interested in the topic of WWI, and the Australian and New Zealand participation in particular, the mini-series is worth a viewing. For scholars studying the events in this theater of the war, is a must see to examine both the attitudes of the day, and at the time the mini-series was made.

This is a fun and offbeat story of a documentary director given the less-than-stellar task of interviewing people who have "sighted" Elvis. We follow the film maker's attempt to make the documentary, being frustrated at every step along the way. Most of the people he meets are not quite sane, which only adds to his frustration, and feeling that he will be overwhelmed by the absurd.

The movie is really less about the King than it is about the fringe legacy of the King; the out-of-touch segment of Elvis fandom without any common sense or a real life to call their own. It is also about searching for the impossible, and trying to find a way to live with the inevitable result (whether it's the director's attempt to make his documentary, or crazy fans trying to track down the hiding Elvis).

A quiet, but fun indie effort, "Elvis Is Alive" will be sure to please the independent film fan, and maybe even an Elvis fan or two if they have a sense of humor.

Fred Willard and Rip Taylor have the two best cameo turns.